Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Thanks to Robert Dragani and LPL Financial for their gift of a fresh wreath to help us celebrate the season!
Regional Cities Initiative Helping
To the right is an article that appeared in The Pilot News, December 18, 2017 discussing the impact of the Regional Cities Initiative. The study was conducted by Ball State University and concluded that it is making a noticeable difference in attracting talented young workers to the area.
Marshall County is part of the North Central Region along with St. Joseph and Elkhart Counties. Most of the funds for our region have been allocated and in Marshall County we’re seeing the impact through assistance in worker housing, manufacturing centers, expanded Boys & Girls Club facilities and an Aquatic Center. In Culver alone, the initiative has helped the Town provide infrastructure to Sand Hill Farm for entry-level housing and money has been set aside for assistance with an E-Commerce center which may provide entrepreneurial opportunities and worker training space. (Culver was in line for additional RCI grants, but the 60% private equity requirement proved daunting for a small community to achieve.)
It’s important to recognize what our local organizations have done to achieve these goals. Marshall County would not have had this opportunity without the foresight of the Marshall County Community Foundation (MCCF) and their initial investment of $10k into the program. That seed money was what put us on the map for this and made the initial connections to St. Joseph and Elkhart Counties. If Linda Yoder hadn’t taking this to the MCCF board and sold it, it wouldn’t have happened.
The hand-off from there went to Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC). Without their efforts, many of the projects submitted by Marshall County would not have made the list before the application was submitted. Then the follow up to keep the dollars allocated to Marshall County stayed with Marshall County largely came down to the shepherding of Jerry Chavez and MCEDC. They were able to get a reallocation of funds to housing initiatives when original projects fell through and then when one of the four housing projects didn’t come to fruition, they were able to secure the money towards the other projects that were viable.
The money that went to the housing project in Culver helped Culver achieve Stellar Community designation this year. It’s a domino effect and currently the dominos are falling in our direction. This was former Governor Mike Pence’s vision when he spearheaded this program. Inject funds into regions that demonstrate the desire and determination to move forward and great things can happen. Let’s hope this continues to buoy our region, county and communities creating the excitement and drive to move us forward.
SRKM Christmas ’17
We received a very cool Christmas Card (right) from our friends at SRKM Architecture. They used an elevation from Sand Hill Farm apartments as their cover picture adding a couple of wreaths on the door. A great idea to memorialize the project this way! We really appreciate their efforts and can’t wait to see if the building looks as good in person as it does in pictures. Thanks guys! Merry Christmas!
Sand Hill Farm Apartments are moving along. Footing and frost walls have been poured. We’re taking advantage of this week’s warm spell to get the perimeter insulation in place and complete the backfill. Installation of interior underslab infrastructure will begin Thursday. We hope to be pouring slabs next week. Things are moving forward!
State Exchange Bank – 1936
Excerpt from the Culver Citizen, December 15, 2017
The picture to the right was in the Friday, December 15, 2017 edition of the Culver Citizen. As I’ve discussed here before, a portion of Easterday Construction’s early years were spent on the second floor of the State Exchange Bank in downtown Culver. By inference, I believe that we would have been there at this time. (Easterday Construction was started some time in the 1920’s and didn’t move to its current location until the 1950’s.)
I recently toured the second floor of the bank building and assessed some of the facade repairs needed. Even with my experience it’s hard to see the old building pictured here under the remodeled skin that is on it now. It would be interesting to see the plans that made the transition. With the current trend towards preservation, led in Indiana by Indiana Landmarks, pictures like this bring new perspective. From experience, no one took any time to preserve what gets buried since the new facade is an improvement. Why would anyone ever want to go back? Which makes going back cost prohibitive. But the nostalgia of pictures like these can’t help but prompt some bittersweet what-if’s…
Since Easterday Construction resided in the building at that time, I have to wonder if we did the renovation discussed. Did we add the cafeteria? As a tenant, was my great grandfather a regular there? It’s interesting to speculate, but those are things lost to history.
Thanks to Judith Burns for making the picture available to the Citizen through her website.
Thoughts provoked by Penn Jillette
I received a copy of this article (right) from USA Today from a friend. Didn’t realize that we were both kindred spirits and fans of Penn Jillette before this. Back in the ’90s I actually subscribed to PC/Computing Magazine mainly for his one page op-ed on the last page.
Reading this article, I find it is amazing that colleges once know for opening young minds have become some of the most closed minded places in our nation. Freedom of Speech is more and more limited to freedom to parrot the current group-think. Heaven forbid anyone’s safe space is challenged. Obviously this isn’t just a college phenomenon, but it’s disappointing to see the degree to which it occurs there.
I often ponder how much this is due to the prevalence of the Internet. I have to admit I’m one of the people that would be lost without it, so I’m not advocating against it. (Of course I’m not! Here I am pontificating on it to a select few that would never read what I write without it!) But… when it has become so easy to find “news” that just agrees with your existing view, it means you are never challenged by other ideas. It’s too easy to find the source you like and just nod along.
I am rarely home in time to watch the evening news, so my main source of news is the Sunday morning recaps. I generally watch Fox News Sunday, then CBS Face the Nation, then NBC Meet the Press and finally PBS’s Washington Week. (Occasionally while on the treadmill, but sometimes that gets my heartrate up too much!) That generally gives me a reasonable smattering of viewpoints from Liberal to Conservative including a few in the middle. Sometimes I hear something infuriating, but then that’s why I watch and attempt to see that viewpoint. I don’t agree with either side all of the time. There are two many gray areas… Something that is ignored in our current political climate of Hard Right and Hard Left pandering to their respective bases and ignoring most of us in the middle.
Mr. Jillette says that Lenny Bruce was shocking in the 60’s and would be shocking to most college students in 2017. A jolt to the system can be a good thing. And this is a play… named “Buyer Beware”… so attendance wouldn’t have been required… and there was forewarning in the title… It’s unfortunate that the group decided that not only would they not attend, but that the option to attend should be removed. Maybe some of their peers were open to being shocked… Maybe it would have been good for them.
